#ask the nova scotians
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// Haven't drawn these three in a very long time, but then again, I haven't drawn much for this blog in a long time either. Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦🍁
#art#ask the nova scotians#atns: pictou#atns: port hawkesbury#atns: stellarton#pictou#port hawkesbury#stellarton#canada day#canada day 2023#ooc#mun speaks#mun
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Hi there!
I just discovered your blog, but I'm a nova scotian currently living on the west coast, and all the videos of home make me remember how much I love and miss it.
Keep up the amazing work! <3
Hi there <3 such a lovely message! Thank you, I'm so glad you enjoy my nova scotian videos! One day I'll get to see the west coast too, I'm sure its beautiful...
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Sidney Crosby for the character ask
actually i do have a very specific first impression of sidney which is that i was . can’t have been ten, probably closer to seven or eight and i was living w my dad and hockey was on and it was pens vs a team that was not the leafs, and i knew he was a leafsfan so i was like “why are you watching hockey if it’s not your team” and he was like “sometimes i like to watch it for sid the kid” and i was like. a kid? and he pointed out what must have been a truly baby sidney and i remember clearly thinking I Hope He’ll Be A Leaf Some Day… truly my delusions have always been there.
IMPRESSION NOW
well GOAT obviously
beyond that he is such a good leader and obviously just a huge awkward dorky sweetheart -- there are no stories of bad encounters with him, like, ever. i think my general vision of him is just someone who is so stubborn and willful and good, who has pushed all of himself into doing hockey and doing hockey well and has negotiated some kind of reward from the universe for it. definitely has The Tism. if i were a hockey boy i too wouldve jerked off to posters of young sidney.
also is aging incredibly as both a player and as a guy… i don’t think either sidney or the audience are ready for silver fox sidney crosby. but the time is approaching far more rapidly than either of us would care to admit
i do however believe that the instant he retires he will vanish into the distant nova scotian woods, or perhaps the sea, and we will never hear anything about him again.
FAV MOMENT
much like ovi, sidney is Old and thereby has an abundance of Moments. Here are some:
sidovi duelling hat tricks night (it was both of their moments, come on)
That one anecdote about him walking with reporters coatless somewhere in the negative tens, followed by them going through the tim hortons in the rink and people stopping and realizing who it is the moment that he goes into the elevator
2010 olympic golden goal
this isn’t technically a Sidney Moment but the steve dangle tweet about “has sidney crosby passed the torch followed by sidney crosby ripping out his opponent’s heart and eating it has been happening for the past six years” (the tweet itself is also about four or five years old)
The entirety of his Fucked Up Teeth era where he had to wear the fishbowl and fought a bunch of people . I think we don’t remember enough that Sid used to be an absolute bloody menace -- I’m pretty sure he’s either the only rookie or one of the only rookies with 100 pts and 100 PIM in a season.
he did the michigan before it was cool btw
IDEA FOR STORY
well let’s go back to the disappearing into the woods thing. have you guys heard of sable island perchance
well u see. there is an island off the coast of nova scotia
it’s got an electoral district and everything. Or it’s part of one. Which is weird because only a couple of researchers live there periodically.
anyway. king under the mountain type au where post-concussions sid decides instead to leave hockey, go back to nova scotia and become a lighthouse keeper/researcher. living on sable island, skating once a year on the thin-ass ocean ice when it freezes. disappears when the sport of hockey needs him most etc
in fact in this au he leaves in 2012, and because there’s no hope of his returning the penguins are. Substantially worse in the following year, not only breaking hard from the playoffs but also doing a leedle light tanking to get themselves a similarly touted prospect… 2013 first overall pick nathan mackinnon.
natemac who is and has always been a sidney fanboy numero uno AND a sicko who wants 2 win above all else. natemac who gets himself immediately into a war of wills with geno because geno wants sid to live a good life, a long and peaceful life away from where he has been and natemac who knows that there is something else going on. that sid gave up, but he is not lost.
so nate and geno play out nate’s rookie year; nate breaks in the offseason for sable island in search of sidney. cue geno coming along.
nategenosidney roadtrip 2 return to hockey nightmare psychosexual experience for everyone involved (geno has to contend with his feelings for sidney, a dear friend and colleague who he wants to both protect and win alongside, as well as his frustration towards nate, this doughy-faced and overemotional young firecracker… a lot like a certain sid, back in the day.) (sid has to deal with his feelings for geno, a respected teammate who he wanted to become captain after him but so clearly would rather not have that spot in his life replaced, and his new affection for this nate guy, someone who is so earnest and so competitive and so insane in exactly the same way as him that he’s not sure if it’s deliriously endearing or driving him nuts)(nate has to deal with his huge awfully enrapturing celebrity crush on someone he has always wanted to play with but who is apparently unavailable and has to deal with this sort of weird captainrookie mutual bullying homoeroticism he’s developed with geno)
i think this just ends up in a threesome tbh but who am i to say
UNPOPULAR OPINION
honestly… i do not find him that particularly attractive… i think it is maybe something to do with yalls competency kink (can’t blame u). the lips and the ass are great though he’s just almost too pretty for me.
also i am a sidstache truther
FAV RELATIONSHIP
genuine tie between nate, geno, and ovi
FAV HEADCANON
go read jes ticklefighthockey’s entire archive right now and then go read her entire ao3. THAT is true sidscholarship i do not feel as if i am anywhere near capable of that level of it
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Had to come update you on my hockey journey (you may remember me asking for help picking a team back in November). Well after a lot of redditing and your helpful response, I went with the Avs. I am obSESSED. Haven’t missed a game. MacKinnon and Makar are my sons, and I’m a proud mom cheering them on from the comfort of my bed (my one gripe is the mountain time games come on so freaking late if you’re in EST; I need my sleep but must watch the boys skate).
Anyway, thank you for your help—I’m learning so much and having a lot of fun. It’s been easy to fall in love with. Go Avs.
Yay!
Avs is such a good pick!
I love Nate MacKinnon with my whole heart (good ole Nova Scotian boi)
hope he's doing so good (he is)
that team has been DRAMATIC this season tho, out here talking shit to the press about their teammates
like i love it, but also, it's stressful because i like to imagine hockey teams as one big happy family that loves and supports each other
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my screenwriting teacher worked on The Lighthouse (almost every person in the nova scotian film industry did) and he told us that Robert Pattinson and Willem da Foe were constantly on set asking what they could do to help. he said they could've been cooped up in their trailers but it was nice they didn't. you are right about it being an exception to the rule though
great to know!! that's the solidarity you need especially on small film crews with ambitious projects. there's just no room for lazy divas
#I figured rob and willem were more or less decent#the outliers are always people on the fringes of the hollywood machine who were humbled by the monster that is starlight#also interesting re nova scotia filmmakers lol#the lighthouse#fanmail
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Cost of living: some Canadians struggle to keep their pets
The rising cost of living is making pet ownership a tougher reality for many Canadians.
Linda Felix, the founder and President of Spay Day Society HRM, said her organization has taken in a lot of abandoned cats so far this year.
“More than usual,” Felix said in an email.
“And we’ve had a number surrendered when people lost their housing,” she said, adding they either became homeless, had to move away and could not take the cat or could not find a new apartment that welcomed pets.
The Nova Scotia SPCA is also experiencing a higher demand for services.
More pet-owners are turning to the organization’s pet pantry—a food bank for pets that offers food, litter, toys and more.
“Inflation is going up on people food but also animal food,” said Sarah Lyon, Director of marketing and communication with the NS SPCA.
Lyon said calls are also coming in each day from people asking about the SPCA’s Paws & Support program.
A free program that allows animal-owners to temporarily place their animals with foster families through the SPCA while they leave domestic violence relationships, are treated in hospital or need help because of short-term housing situations.
“The bulk of the calls that we are receiving for our paws and support is people finding themselves without a home to go to,” Lyon said.
She noted the SPCA does not turn people away who are fleeing domestic violence or need help while in hospital, but the biggest need right now is for people finding themselves unhoused or unable to secure housing that will allow pets.
The organization is having to turn people away because it can’t meet the demand.
“To not be able to help, family, people and their pets is really hard is really hard,” Lyon said. “It’s hard on the staff. It’s hard on the mental health of the staff.”
The SPCA has also experienced a dip in donations and volunteer time.
“We know Nova Scotians are generous and living with the inflation and the cost of living and their time is really important as well. And we hope we’re one of their charities of choice when they can,” Lyon said.
from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/xvZl6c9
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Hello!! I absolutely love trice forgotten and I was so over the moon excited to hear the name noor for the first time cuz that’s my brothers name! I never get to hear it very often in fiction. Also I absolutely love the occasional Islamic phrases noor will use. Can I ask how you came up with which languages and ethnicities you wanted your characters to be?
hello friend! :D I'm excited that you're excited, and as you can tell I love the name Noor so i hope they live up to your excitement!
i chose the languages and ethnicities based on the diasporas i grew up around in London, especially when those weren't/aren't seen in British media - Tamil Sri Lankans, Yemeni people, Filipinos, non-mainland Chinese and West Africans - my friends and family are these ethnicities because of where the British have been - and though more and more reprentation has grown of trans white people and of queer east asians, the people i grew up near have had their cultures and histories forgotten and forgotten in the western canon.
I'm far and away from being any kind of expert on the cultures in the show, but they are at least slightly more familiar to me; i ate in British Tamil households, so know marginally more about them than other South Asian cultures.
I think Baker and Alestes are the outliers - both of their backgrounds were built from historical figures I'd read about while doing preliminary research - one study on Chinese South Africans, and one on the history of Black Nova Scotians - both related to the British trade routes between the Americas to South Asia, swinging around Cape Town.
As for languages, they all speak English because all of their countries of birth have been colonised by the British - but I wanted them to have the mixed-race/diaspora/migrant struggle of having too many better (/worse) words tumbling out of their mouth. There's no English term that encapsulates insha'Allah for Noor. Alestes swears in Hokkien because Baker didn't speak any and couldn't tell her off, but she doesn't know Hokkien, or isiXhosa, she's always lived on the outer edges of people who do.
anyway, very long ramble that could simply have been: because my friends' backgrounds made it easy for me to start researching!
#ask nemo#thank you for letting me once again go off about my babies#if you're interested in knowing more please do ask I'm just aware of the autism making me ready to write a 20k essay about how they link#and i already nearly gave 3 spoilers writing this post lmao#trice forgotten
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Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston is asking for urgent help as wildfires continue to burn out of control in his province.
In a news conference Wednesday, Houston said he has reached out to Ottawa and other provinces for all available assistance.
“The list of asks is significant, we know that. But we’ve made the ask,” Houston said.
“It’s time to pitch in with whatever you have… Nova Scotia needs the help right now.”
In a letter to the prime minister, Houston said nearly 20,000 people have been evacuated from their homes and tens of thousands of hectares of land is on fire.
“With only dry weather conditions in the forecast for the remainder of the week, Nova Scotia is a province in crisis,” reads the letter.
Nova Scotia has already received supplies and assistance from Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Houston says the province has asked for the Coast Guard to be deployed to Shelburne County. Additionally, 17 firefighters from New York and New Hampshire will start work on Saturday and the 20-member Department of Natural Resources and Renewables (DNRR) firefighting crew that was assisting with the Northwest Territories wildfires will return late Wednesday night and begin work in Nova Scotia Thursday.
“The province is doing everything within its power to combat the fires and to meet the needs of our people. All emergency services are activated and being used to fight and contain the fires to the extent that is possible with human intervention,” wrote Houston.
Houston said the road to recovery will be a long one.
“As you can appreciate, we need help urgently and would most certainly appreciate coordination across federal departments. Given the scope and breadth of Nova Scotians' needs, I wanted to put all requests in writing and in one place so that they could be addressed directly by you,” reads the letter to the prime minister.
Houston has formally requested the following assistance from the federal government:
military firefighters when the fire reaches the sustained attack stage
ignition specialist personnel and ignition equipment
firefighting foam
assistance in securing a base camp that can house 250 firefighters, as well as an incident command post infrastructure to support all on the ground.
5,000 lengths of 1 ½ inch 100 ft. length quick connect coupling hose
Nomex or equivalent wildland firefighting clothing
12 4X4 trucks
four helicopters (intermediate or above) certified to drop water
50 per cent cost share on modular housing for those who have lost homes due to the fires
commitment of advanced payment through the Disaster Financial Assistance Agreement administered by Public Safety Canada.
commitment to match any Red Cross donations
commitment to collaboration between the Nova Scotia Office of the Superintendent of Insurance and Federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Intuitions to ensure any Nova Scotian impacted by the fires has timely access to decisions by their insurance company, and an expedited pathway to address situations where individuals are denied coverage
access to any under utilized military housing for displaced individuals while rebuilding takes place
a commitment of skilled trades people from military, federal agencies, and departments – via special secondments to the private sector through CANS. Additionally, a commitment under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program that the situation in Nova Scotia will be classified as a natural disaster under the Exceptional and Unforeseen Events - Provincial Agreements (R204{c} - T13) allowing employers to by-pass a Labour Market Impact Assessments if there is a provincial letter of support for certain trades (eg. constructions, trades and other labourers)
mobile resources to supplement and complement those already deployed
support for critical infrastructure for telecommunications.
a Temporary Leave Benefit that would provide wage replacement and/or funding to support for buying necessities such as food and clothing. The funding will be advertised through social media and disbursed through Labour, Skills and Immigration’s Nova Scotia Works Centres
support to restart agriculture businesses that were in evacuation areas
for tourism operators (and other businesses/employers impacted by the fires), ACOA could play an active role by funding and streamlining distribution of funds for the eventual rebuilding and pivoting of businesses to recover as quickly as possible
“You know your resources best and know what can help in a situation like this. Given the seriousness, any other resources at the disposal of the federal government that we haven’t mentioned but could help, please send. We ask for your common sense and support,” wrote Houston.
Earlier Wednesday, leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party Zach Churchill issued a statement saying “Nova Scotia has yet to make a formal request to Ottawa for additional resources.”
“The province needs to pull all available levers to ensure Nova Scotians are kept safe and we receive more help to contain this escalating situation. That must include calling on the federal government to help,” Churchill said.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Houston said it was “absolutely not true” that Nova Scotia was refusing offers of help.
“Those that spread the rumours that Nova Scotia hadn’t asked for help — these are ongoing discussions… Officials have had ongoing conversations with counterparts,” Houston said, referring to municipal, provincial and federal governments.
Houston added the rumours are “not helpful when we’re in a crisis like this.”
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tilly I hate asking this to writers but I'M SO CURIOUS so I gotta ask: are we going to get a gc update anytime soon? like, don't get me wrong, I'm not demanding you to update or anything because that's just rude and you don't owe anyone any updates. but also I'm so stressed these days and a new gc update would do WONDERS to my anxiety so I just wanted to ask if my favorite method of de-stressing will get update soon or not anyways love you bye
ok, so this might not help with destressing, BUT HAVE A SNIPPET ANYHOW (and yeah, it's coming, it's just slow going)
--
Nate: STOP CALLING ME A CHILD BRIDE
Nate: I am neither a child, NOR A BRIDE
EJ: He’d look so pretty in white.
Gabe: I’ve heard tales of what he and Crosby get up to of a dark nova scotian night, there’s no way that boy can wear white.
EJ: Ivory?
Gabe: Please. With his skin tone?
EJ: Ugh, fine. Champagne?
Gabe: Don’t mind if I do. You pour.
EJ: Fantastic. I’ve got this BRILLIANT cup to drink out of.
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// The Nova Scotia girls are back as mermaids for Mermay! 🧜🏻♀️
#art#ask the nova scotians#atns: peggy's cove#atns: liverpool#atns: port mouton#atns: middleton#atns: port hawkesbury#atns: mabou#peggy's cove#liverpool#port mouton#middleton#port hawkesbury#mabou#mermaids#mermay#mermay 2023#merfolk
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what’s yama’s favorite color? what model is pauly’s car?? does ev drive a motorcycle?? i would like to know abt her husband if you have any more information on that. how does jones dress in high school and then once he’s moved to calgary???
yamas favourite colour is forest green! there's a house they used to walk past on the way to school thats green w yellow trim and they liked it so much they adopted it as their favourite colour (was orange before that and sometimes still is!)
Pauly drives a white 1995 nissan Sentra! it was a shop car at his school and once it was running properly he asked the teacher if he could have it. it's, sorry, a hunk of shit and always will be but him n Jones keep it running well enough and its not like the rest of them have cars lol
she does!! I'm not super sure what model but it's not like a Harley or a cruiser or anything. smth relatively lightweight and zippy that they've had modified so their facility dog(s) can ride too
also ough I need to do more thinking about Drew but he MOSTLY tours the Maritimes for his music that is ! gaining popularity. its a very specific blend of folk/country/shanty thats rlly inherently Nova scotian and hes always like, that guy at the kitchen party with a guitar and a Keith's. he can hear any song once and then play it on guitar he's got a crazy ear. him and ev met in. God. like grade seven but drew was a grade above her and they didn't get together until he had to redo a year and they ended up in a bunch of the same classes. then they got married basically as soon as Ev graduated bc they're stupid in love. he sang kiss me by sixpence none the richer at their wedding and then talked the entire wedding party into jumping into the harbour in their fancy clothes (everyone got ear infections. harbours nasty)
also okay. Jones dressed like Jesse pinkman in highschool. like absolute stereotypical dysphoria fits combined w the general vibe of "its 2000-2004 im a fall out boy fan and I don't want anyone looking at me ever" the buzzcut was a. choice for him. and then moving out west he kept that up for a bit and after he started working at the garage he skewed a little more, like, if vin diesel was a member of smash mouth. yknow? he stopped wearing huge jorts Eventually but the man will probably be wearing vans at his own funeral if not his wedding
#yamato escueta#pauly lys#evrett anderson#jones escueta#drew lastname#sorry drew. i guess anderson too but i need his stage name#general oc tag
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Okay so my nights gone a little crazy so like I’ve been excited all week because my mom and my brother are visiting and I live in rural Nova Scotia and my circle consists of my nan’s card making group.
I made a TikTok while the news was on and I’ve had a couple go a little crazy in the past so I have notifs turned off. Anyway I watched jeopardy and like Mattea is a fucking folk hero in Canada right now cuz honestly we don’t see a lot of Scotian rep on American media. She loses by a dollar. We’re all in shock and I’m losing my marbles.
I then get a text from someone asking for help moving. I ignored is because I moved abruptly in a manic episode a month ago and idk how to tell ppl yet.
We played some board games and I check my TikTok to see I’m in the process of having mild success specifically on British TikTok. Anyway I’m now sick to my stomach because who the FUCK expects their jeopardy champ to lose by a dollar and go mildly viral on TikTok while they make the morally grey move to leave someone asking for help on read because they’re a BPD bitch who moved 6 hours away without telling a soul.
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Thoughts on every Canadian province (by a totally 100% unbiased Albertan):
British Columbia (BC)—It’s pretty. By which I mean pretty fuckin expensive. Nice views, decent weather, Victoria’s fine to visit but don’t ever ask me to set foot in Vancouver. The Vancouver airport is weird and fucked up. The areas in the Rockies are nice, there are some pleasant lakes, otherwise it’s mid. Closer to the coast it’s like the California of Canada. Fuck you for all the snow you don’t get.
Alberta—Home. It fuckin sucks, but in a very specific way that I can survive. Albertans are highly specialized organisms who can survive in this particular shithole but hate literally everywhere else (and for good reason, rest of the country doesn’t like us any more than we like them). Very diverse landscape, though you’d never realize it because most of the middle of it is just eternal canola everywhere around you. Canadian Texas, complete with cowboys. I hate this godforsaken place, but everywhere else is worse.
Saskatchewan—There’s. Things in Saskatchewan, supposedly. Rumour has it that there is at least one city. I believe that it exists and that there are people, if only for the fact that it borders us and I have relatives who live there.
Manitoba—I’m still not 100% sure that this province exists. I’ve met a solid one person from Manitoba. You never hear anything about the place. It may very well be a collective hallucination, I don’t know.
Ontario—Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. 0/10 hell. Bad. Bad. Bad. Toronto? The root of all evil. Ottawa? No. Just no. My boyfriend is the only good thing to ever come out of Ontario, and that’s because he left. There is no good contained in this province. This is not a place of honour. Fuck Ontario, all my homies hate Ontario.
Quebec—Somehow manages to be even worse than Ontario, probably because it also contains The French. Do not ever ask me to even consider properly setting foot in this province. I’ve been in the Montreal airport one time for a couple of hours and that’s more than enough for me. They literally have an entire political party that runs in our federal elections (the Bloc Québécois). At least Alberta’s not serious about wanting to leave the country. Created poutine, and that’s all the good they’ve done.
New Brunswick—I don’t think about New Brunswick.
Nova Scotia—Y’know what, this is a pretty acceptable one. Never been, but from the Nova Scotians I’ve met it seems solid enough. I’m not a Maritime person, but y’all’re decent.
Prince Edward Island (PEI)—I cannot say I understand why this is its own full province. This is like the country’s baby brother who we kinda forget exists. Anne of Green Gables, potatoes, and utterly incomprehensible accent are the only three things I know about the place. Extra points because when I was a kid I heard about the PEI potato museum and wanted nothing more than to visit it. Honestly, that desire has not lessened by much.
Newfoundland & Labrador—Two for the price of one. Don’t know shit about Labrador, but I’ve met a couple Newfies and I’m decent friends with one of them. Accent is no joke, that Canadian raising is. It’s something. But I really can’t judge accents, so. Decent province.
Bonus: The territories—Respect to the residents of the territories for being proof that humans will find a way to survive in literally any environment. I don’t know much about the territories, I don’t think there’s much to know about. I’d like to visit someday to see the northern lights in their fullest glory, though.
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7, 17, and 26 for the history ask?
7. [Favourite] Historical dressing, uniform, or costume?
It's less a specific costume or fashion era than overall look for me. In women's clothing, I'm a fan of full or full-ish skirts and fitted bodices with a natural waistline, so European/North American mid-19th century or mid-20th century are some of my favourites.
17. What historical item would you like to own?
Honestly not something I've thought about that much; I don't tend to collect things like that (and couldn't afford to anyway).
26. Who do you think is a forgotten hero we should know about and admire?
For a story I'm mildly surprised Hollywood hasn't got hold of yet, and for badassing her way out of a Nazi death sentence, Mona Parsons. She went from small-town Nova Scotia to the Ziegfeld Follies, to nursing school, to marrying a Dutch millionaire. When WWII broke out, her husband wanted her to go back to Canada, but she refused, and they became part of a network helping to hide downed Allied pilots in the occupied Netherlands. The network was betrayed in 1941, Mona was arrested, and after refusing to give anything away under interrogation, she was sentenced to death. Supposedly her calm reaction to the sentence so impressed the judge that he met her outside the courtroom and advised her to appeal - which she did, and the sentence was reduced to life with hard labour. She managed to survive in German prisons until 1945, when she and a fellow prisoner escaped in the chaos of an Allied bombing raid. They made their way across Germany to the Netherlands, avoiding recapture, and ran into, would you believe, soldiers from a Nova Scotian regiment, some of whom knew Mona from back home (fun fact: my grandfather was in that regiment, though not involved in this episode).
After the war, and after her husband's death (he'd also been imprisoned and survived, but was badly weakened and died a few years later), she returned to her hometown, remarried, and spent the rest of her life in Nova Scotia.
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More than 13 months after the invasion of Ukraine, Canadians with no ties to President Vladimir Putin or his regime remain frustrated and anxious as salaries earned abroad, retirement investments and even funeral savings sit frozen among the assets caught up in Canada's sanctions net.
Ingrid Morton and her husband Graham are among them. For years, they travelled the world on a series of contracts teaching English at international schools. Their final accord was in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
But when political unrest erupted in street protests and local authorities declared a state of emergency in early 2022 — followed closely by Russia's invasion of Ukraine — they decided to leave the region before their contracts ended. They'd already had a bad experience trying to get out of China when COVID hit. Ingrid was ready to retire.
"I just thought, 'Oh my God, I can't take this anymore. This is crazy,'" she said. The Mortons now live in Toronto. But not all the salaries they earned teaching in Kazakhstan to Canada with them.
Their school put its foreign teachers' salaries into accounts with Sberbank Kazakhstan, a subsidiary of Sberbank Russia listed among the financial institutions being sanctioned by Canada.
Last year, Sberbank Kazakhstan restructured to escape international sanctions. But that corporate changeover hadn't happened yet when Ingrid made what had been, up to that point, a routine transaction for them as teachers abroad — a money transfer from their school's local Sberbank branch to a CIBC branch in Canada.
Ingrid transferred the couple's money on March 1, 2022 — one week after Canada imposed sanctions on multiple Russian banks. "I asked the financial person at our school, 'Can I still send money to Canada?' And she said yes," Ingrid said. "I went to the bank, and it was total mayhem … I said, 'Can I send money out?' And they said yes."
Previous transfers to Canada had appeared in their Canadian account within a few days. This one didn't. "I sent it in good faith that it would arrive," she said. "Sberbank said, 'Well, we've sent it. We're not responsible. It's gone.'"
Ingrid said she believes this transfer, worth about $10,000, was frozen by the Canadian government because of the bank it came from — a bank their employer picked, not them.
"It's not fair," Ingrid said. "Don't they know that Kazakhstan is a country? I didn't send such a huge amount like a Russian oligarch's probably going to send … It seems really stupid on their part to just lump me in with that."
Ingrid applied for a permit to release the couple's money — joining a long queue that's believed to be straining the capacity of Global Affairs Canada (GAC) to run due diligence and grant exemptions. It's impossible to reach anyone at GAC by phone, she said.
"Why is it taking them about a year, and I haven't even had an e-mail from a person?" she said, adding that all she and her husband receive back are automated messages.
"How long is the war going on could be years, and my look at individual cases." While the dollar value of their frozen assets doesn't pose a significant hardship for the Mortons, Ingrid said she feels for those who are missing gigantic amounts.
"There's a lot of innocent people suffering," she said. "I wouldn't expect something like that to be happening in Canada. I would expect fair treatment."
Derek Nickerson said he doesn't consider himself a wealthy person; the Nova Scotian retiree was savvy enough about international investing to shop around in other jurisdictions in search of better rates of return for his retirement savings.
He and his wife opened U.S. dollar accounts at ArmSwissBank, based in Armenia, in 2015. Last March, as interest rates shifted, they $35,000 US to an RBC account. He said he saw their money arrive in the account's records on March 17 — and then disappear on March 22.
He contacted RBC and learned that the money had transited through a correspondent bank in Russia — Alfa Bank, which is on Canada's sanctions list.
"When I ask for a SWIFT transfer, I don't know how come," Nickerson said. He said he didn't learn his transfer had been routed through a sanctioned bank until it was too late.
In the year since, he's struggled to get information from RBC and applied for an exemption from GAC but has heard little response. "I wonder if they're not going to do anything until the war," he said.
While his money is frozen, he's not earning interest. He fears it's losing value at a higher rate because of recent high inflation. "That's our retirement money," he said.
Angelina Ermakov's mother has been a Canadian citizen since 2015, after moving to Ottawa to live with her daughter's family in retirement.
Following a Russian tradition, her mother saved enough money for her funeral — about a million rubles, or $17,000 in Canadian funds — in the Russian bank branch next door to where she used to live in Moscow.
Ermakov finally convinced her mother to move her "funeral money" to her Canadian bank account last February. But the wire transfer from Alfa Bank didn't go through before the sanctions rules kicked in.
"It's all of her savings. That's her peace of mind," Ermakov said. "She asks me every day where they are." No one in their family is associated with the Putin regime; she wonders if her transfer was targeted because of her mother's Russian surname.
"[This is] not blood money or money supporting the war," said Ermakov, who has lived in Canada since 1990. "We do not support the war because we already come and live in a different country."
Ermakov said with RBC that the money's being held until and unless GAC authorizes its release. She said she's heard nothing but "radio silence" from the government.
"It's like talking to a wall because there isn't anyone responding or dealing or even reading emails at this point. I mean, it's been a year," she said.
Ermakov works in the federal public service. She said she finds it hard to believe the department's too overwhelmed to process her mother's application quickly.
"It's clear that it's a policy," she said "It is intentional because when there is a volume of work, you hire … you pay overtime to people, you bring more people to that team or you get another team to work on this issue … I've seen it done before."
All three of these cases are believed to be among several hundred sitting on Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly's desk — languishing among the more than $122 million in funds frozen by Canadian authorities since the invasion of Ukraine.
One person who spoke to CBC News earlier this winter finally got access to her family's savings last month. The RCMP, which tracks the total amounts of frozen assets and blocked transactions under Canada's Special Economic Measures Act, told CBC News on Monday that its tally has not changed substantially since December.
"Canada is judicious in its approach to deploying sanctions, and we are committed to their effective and coordinated use," Grantly Franklin, a media spokesperson for the department, wrote in response to specific CBC questions about the department's backlog in processing exemption requests.
In October, the federal government allocated $76 million to the sanctions. "Global Affairs Canada will use its portion of this investment to expand the capacity of the sanctions policy and coordination team," Franklin said.
"Our sanctions aim to apply pressure on foreign actors, not on Canadians."
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'I need to find my son': N.S. mother desperate for answers a year after son’s disappearance
A Nova Scotia mother is still desperately searching for answers a year after her son disappeared without a trace.
“It’s like he completely vanished. No trace whatsoever,” says Theresa Gray. “No social media, no using of his bank account, no answering texts or phone calls.”
Friday marks the one-year anniversary of Devon Marsman’s disappearance.
Halifax Regional Police say the teen was last seen in the Spryfield areaon Feb. 24, 2022 and reported missing to police on March 4, 2022. He was 16 at the time.
At that time, Halifax police said they had no reason to suspect foul play in Marsman’s disappearance.
However, police said in October that they believed his disappearance was suspicious.
“It should have been criminal, deemed suspicious right away,” says Gray.
Gray says her daughter saw the teen at home on Feb. 24, 2022, but that police have told her they have proof he ordered a taxi to his cousin’s house in Spryfield the next day.
Police would only tell CTV News that Marsman was last seen in Spryfield.
“If someone’s not holding him, I think harm has been done to him, and I need to find my son,” says Gray.
She says police did collect some evidence while searching a residence in the Spryfield area.
“I was told not long ago, they can’t specifically tell me what came back, but whatever came back, now it’s called hold evidence.”
Halifax Regional Police Const. John MacLeod tells CTV News he can’t release specifics about the case because it’s an ongoing investigation.
“But we can tell you we have been and continue to look into investigative avenues,” says MacLeod. “We are following up on tips that have been given to police.”
Gray says police and search-and-rescue scoured a pond in Spryfield last fall, though police would not confirm this to CTV News.
“I’m not sure what that search entailed or why they specifically went to Roach’s pond,” says Gray.
Regardless, she says she has been consumed by the search for her son, often spending her days off work conducting her own search of the pond and the surrounding area.
Family and friends have held their own searches and vigils and plastered posters across the country over the last year.
Gray says she has been all over the Maritimes and even talked to psychics about her son’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, police are asking people who have information about the case to come forward.
“There are people still that haven’t provided information to us and that information could be very important,” says MacLeod.
The Nova Scotia Department of Justice is offering up to $150,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case, under its Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program.
Marsman, now 17, is described by police as African Nova Scotian, about five feet tall and 100 pounds, with blue-green eyes and short dark hair.
He was wearing a hoodie and jeans the last time he was seen.
Anyone with information about his disappearance is asked to call the Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program at 1-888-710-9090, Halifax Regional Police at 902-490-5020, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/xbD63iN
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